Social Media, Smartphones and Police Create a Stasi Web of Surveillance

Twitter has released a report confirming that the US government leads the world in requesting information on their citizens. The Transparency Report shows the US government has made requests that are infringing on American privacy rights.

Twitter states that “we’ve received more government requests in the first half of 2012, as outlined in this initial dataset, than in the entirety of 2011.”

As the US government sifts through the tweets US citizens are making and analyzing information from illegal means, there are decisions about particular citizens being made to justify the construction of an all-encompassing Big Brother network.

Cloud computing is also under surveillance, as every conversation is recording and filed. While Microsoft denies this is true, the adherence to their rules and regulations explains that all your personal information is stored within Skype. In section 2 of their user contract explains:
Our primary purpose in collecting information is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient, and customized experience. Skype collects and uses, or has third party service providers acting on Skype’s behalf collecting and using, personal data relating to you, as permitted or necessary to . . .